#and rehashed

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

I love a sandwich.

[cordspaghetti]

au where i break into the gway heaven by marc jacobs shoot and start amateurishly mucking about

[chimerafeathers]

i really love how intensely Mirabelle reacts to act 5 Siffrin botched friendquest.

Isabeau is mostly operating out of concern and, eventually, hurt. he already knows something’s up before Siffrin gets to him. he knows something truly awful must be wrong for Siffrin to be lashing out like they are, and as soon as he can’t handle the situation anymore, he leaves and asks (with strained cheer) for time apart to cool off.

most of Bonnie’s anger comes from being upset and afraid that Siffrin would willingly put themself in danger for no reason, when that’s exactly why they’ve been so unsettled since the eye incident. they hate that Siffrin values their own life so little, they hate that they’re the cause of any pain or loss for him, and here he is, putting himself in that situation AGAIN. on purpose. it’s loud and explosive, but it’s familiar, too, being “hated” by Bonnie for this reason.

Odile pushes, and keeps pushing, until her concern overwhelms Siffrin and they strike where they know she’s most vulnerable. she gets physical, just for a moment, grabbing his collar before controlling herself and letting go. her fury shuts down into cold detachment, and she walks away.

but Mirabelle—dear, sweet, gentle, loving Mirabelle, “the most wonderful being on earth,” with her secret “ruthless side” that largely involves lightly badmouthing people behind their backs and then apologizing—slaps them. immediately.

and then COMPLETELY RENOUNCES THEIR FRIENDSHIP.

not just “we’re not friends anymore,” but “we were never friends in the first place.”

that’s!!! pretty extreme!!!!

of course, she ALSO starts by asking what’s wrong. something must have happened for him to act like this. but as soon as Siffrin brushes her off, she jumps past that line of questioning and dives headfirst into re-evaluating everything she thought she knew about them as a a person.

if he could say something like that to her and not see anything wrong with it, then she was wrong to treat him as a friend, wrong to read camaraderie into his teasing, wrong to think they must care about them all under their aloof demeanor.

that’s how Mirabelle phrases it—“I was wrong about you”—but i think that there’s a hidden layer of I was right about you, too.

she talks about the way they tease her like she had to convince herself that he was doing it in a friendly way. she says they talk like they “know better than her” like that’s a thought she’s had for a LONG time.

“Always soooo mysterious, Siffrin, always talking as if you're better than me! As if you know me!!! But you don't, Siffrin!!! You're just as lost and useless as I am!!! So stop!!! Talking!!! As if you know me!!!!!!”

none of this comes across as a new, sudden way to view Siffrin for her. it doesn’t shock or confuse her. it makes her angry, defensive, almost like she was waiting for something like this to happen at some point. the feeling of resentment, frustration, jealousy, being patronized and condescended to—this is something she’s been actively pushing down and rejecting this entire time, but they’ve given her ample reason for it all to boil to the surface. violently.

Mirabelle’s kindness is not inherent or easy. it’s a choice she’s making. she treats Siffrin warmly because she gives him the benefit of the doubt—refusing to act based on anxiety-fueled, cynical speculation, and reassuring herself that his actions are driven by care and friendship even if she can’t quite see it.

“I was wrong about you” doesn’t mean she always and without question believed them to be a fundamentally kind, caring person from the beginning—it’s that her first, colder instincts were right, and she was wrong to convince herself otherwise.

never mind that she asked what was wrong at first. she barely gives them time to speak in their own defense, to explain what they really meant by what they said. all of her suppressed doubts and frustrations are getting aired out now, now that all the trust she’d so deliberately placed in him has been betrayed. her pain feels bigger than this singular moment, so when she hurts him back, she makes sure it extends back through the entirety of their relationship for him, too.

“You're awful. You're not my friend, not my ally, not anything. You never were.”

like the others, she goes back to the clocktower and tells Siffrin not to come back until later. but there’s a finality to the way she ends this confrontation that isn’t quite there with the others. Isabeau and Odile reach their breaking point and remove themselves from the situation, asking for space to cool off but still somewhat leaving the door open for Siffrin to tell them what’s really going on at some point. Mirabelle is the only one who tries to fully cut ties—after everything else she says, her “I don’t want to see you until tonight” reads to me somewhat as “I don’t want to see you anymore unless I have to.”

I can’t wait to never see you again.

even back at the clocktower, Mirabelle doesn’t really defend Siffrin’s place in the party when Odile suggests leaving them behind out of concern for their trustworthiness on the most important day of the journey. Isabeau and Bonnie protest out of sentimentality and faith in Siffrin’s abilities and connection to them, and Mirabelle agrees, but…

“I agree, but... B-But would he even agree to come with us, still? Maybe they won't even come back tonight...”

she doesn’t say much outside of that. maybe the stutter and hesitation here are signs of regret about how things happened, but she lacks Isabeau and Bonnie’s confidence that Siffrin even wants to come back to them in the first place. she doesn’t trust that their bond was real anymore. maybe it never was in the first place, or maybe she broke whatever was there herself.

and she’s still mad when they finally catch up to Siffrin at the King! and she makes sure Siffrin knows that—after saving them, assuring him that he no longer needs to fight, that they’re all there for him. she still cares, of course she still cares—she’s still hurt, too, but they can figure that part out once there’s less world-ending stuff going on.

she’s the first to say that they all reserve the right to still be angry at Siffrin later—and that they’ve already forgiven him.

she’s also the first to say we want to stay with you, too. it’s not just you.

she was wrong! she thought they didn’t care but they care so much, it’s overwhelming, it’s world-ending.

i think she’s gonna be wallowing in guilt post-canon the moment she remembers what she said and did TO SIFFRIN and not just what Siffrin said to her. especially now that she knows Siffrin’s exact hangups, and especially especially if she figures out what Siffrin was trying to say.

they put themself through hell out of loneliness and fear that none of the others cared about him the way he cared about them, he was going insane from repetition and exhaustion and hunger and trying to keep them all safe and together, and all they did in the midst of all that was say something kind of mean to her one time (that turned out to not even be MEANT to be mean it was supposed to be HELPFUL they just SAID IT ALL WRONG) and she SLAPPED THEM? and told him that they WEREN’T FRIENDS AT ALL??? how could she!!! she should have known better!! what they said hurt a lot but still!!!

so when they eventually manage to try to talk about it, they end up almost in, like, a guilt competition.

Mirabelle apologizing for how she reacted, that she shouldn’t have yelled or hit him, that she doesn’t want to be the kind of person who acts that way out of anger and she’s sorry that she made Siffrin expect that reaction from her, she should have known better and believed in him more and they only messed up like that because they were losing their mind in a time loop but what’s HER excuse—

and Siffrin going nononono stop I deserved it—(HUH DON’T SAY THAT NO YOU DIDN’T)—and that he should never have said such awful things to her, ever, and she was under so much pressure already with the weight of the country and everyone’s lives and futures and her religion and their whole party counting on her to do this impossible task because she’s the only one who can, all this unbearable expectation and hope crushing her, and they KNEW that but they thought they could skip to the ending as though her feelings didn’t matter at all, like helping her wasn’t as important as saving a little time—

until they’re just. in tears together, apologizing for all the horrible things they did in between complimenting each other’s strength and kindness and resilience and how much they admire each other and saying that no, everything you did was completely understandable, actually, the only one who sucks here is me. which neither of them will accept coming from the other!!

they’re so similar, in ways they couldn’t really understand, before.

warm, affectionate, perfect Mirabelle, the resolute hero, a beacon of compassion and hope for all those around her, who wears her heart on her sleeve, her fear making her courage shine all the brighter—nothing like the insignificant, forgettable Siffrin, too terrified to be known, too fragile to touch, too selfish and disgusting to bear letting go.

cool, mysterious, unflappable Siffrin, the worldly traveler, as charming and silly as they are confident and skilled, who brushed off losing an eye like it was nothing, accepting the risks of this journey with barely more than a shrug—nothing like the anxious, stagnant, undeserving Mirabelle, a fraud and a nobody crumbling under the weight of a mission too important to be entrusted to someone like her, doubting herself, doubting her friends, doubting her mentor, doubting her faith, too weak and brittle to bend and change the way the world needs her to without breaking.

not worth bothering others with their problems. they should be able to handle this alone. stay positive, stay calm. breathe in, and out.

they’ll struggle with it, still—the hiding, the minimizing—but now, they understand each other a little better. they can hold each other accountable for what they leave unsaid.

it’ll get easier, eventually. they have plenty of time.

[ankle-beez]

"we need more angry, traumatized female characters" you guys could barely handle katara

[jonnywaistcoat]

Have you heard of I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream? If you have, do you like it?

Have I heard of one of the seminal pieces of New Wave science fiction? Yes, I have. Do I like it...?

Huh. What a question. Do I like it?

I guess the answer is no, not really. Or at least, I didn't enjoy the experience of reading it: it's heavily locked into a lot of the cultural and sociological outlooks of the 60s and 70s that I find kind of repugnant and while some of what goes down is gross in a way I love to read, a lot of it is gross in a way I really don't.

So I don't like it. But that's one reason why I'm really glad I read it. Only reading and engaging with things you like it eventually leaves your brain a bit mushed. Sometimes you need something to wrestle with, something unpleasant you can sit with in discomfort. And I don't mean "hate-reading" or going in looking for reasons to tear something down - I mean good faith engagement with art that you don't like. Because I always find that people are so quick to ask "what's wrong with this?" they fail to ask what I think is a more compelling question: "what value can I find in here, what is there that's interesting?"

And to be fair that's a very easy task with I Have No Mouth. Harlan Ellison is a great writer tackling some fascinating questions and its an influential enough work that it puts a lot of later sci-fi (that I often enjoy more) into context. Plus I love an evil computer and AM is the absolute GOAT.

And obviously there's no shame in tapping out of a piece of art if you're genuinely finding it too unpleasant to get through, but I'm always in favour of good faith engagement with art you don't like. It keeps the fire hot for the inspiration soup.

[soup-mother]

*seeing women be treated as a reproductive resource to be controlled and forbidden from doing many things because of patriarchy* "hey how come those chicks get it so good? this is why we need mens rights!"

[separatist-apologist]

Genuinely, and I mean this kindly, but learning to recognize bait and not engaging with it will change your fandom experience.

[hajihiko]

Oh I did make this

[davidtennan-t]

this is permanently pinned on Donna’s fridge

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Last thing I'm going to post about the "Merica 50 countries on a trenchcoat" discourse for a while lol.

There ARE interesting regional cultures in the USA, and in theory I don't mind yanks talking or even bragging about them. Or I WOULDN'T mind it if they were capable of talking about it without communicating through their tone and choice of words that they on some level think that even the mildest, most basic example of cultural variability or regionalism is going to be a mindblowing alien concept to stupid little foreigners in their tiny culturally monolithic countries. Every time they talk about it they do it like no one else in the world besides america has ever encountered the concept of regional accents or creole languages or linguistic pockets or rural/urban cultural divides because every other country is so small and tiny.

[armoredprincess]

me and all the other princesses are getting together in a big ballroom and hurting each other with punches & kicks & bokken & polearms & kusarigama & knives (chef's or throwing) & izuna drops & cavalry charges & black powder cannons & firing squads & guillotines & 100mm naval guns & rs-28 sarmats & ak47s & baseball bats & cricket bats & hockey sticks & tire irons & anything else you can find in a mall zombie movie style & sumi-gaeshis & shortswords & smallswords & longswords & slabs of iron too thick to be called a sword & swordbreakers & hand-and-halves & ap chagis & shoulder-fired rocket launchers & macuahuitls & colony drops & nanobot swarms & laser rifles & attack dogs & precognitive perfect defenses & airlock ambushes & vicious mockery & the cutting words you want to say in a masterstroke of cold vengeance but instead foolishly blurt out in the heat of the moment & public humiliation & shurikens & siege tactics & cut-off supply lines & ballistae & catapults & trebuchets & boiling oil & arrows & mossberg 500s & aú sem mâos & seiken zuki & greataxes & handaxes & garrotes & warhammers & morningstars & nunchucks & anthrax & sarin & arsenic & potassium cyanide & assassin's creed style hidden blades & flamethrowers & pencils like john wick & broken glass & unbroken glass & tridents & bidents & figure four armlocks & rear chokes & manual strangulation & spectral possession & demonic summonings & heavenly judgment & two-fingered pressure point strikes & tasers & mace & six-shooters & type 094 nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines & ice magic & fire magic & countermagic & true magic & fingernails & bricks & knees & elbows. and you're not invited.

[artist-issues]

I have never seen anything so satisfyingly bad in my entire life, and we’re going on like ten years of these Live Action Remakes.

Don’t you DARE go see this movie if you love the real Lilo & Stitch.

1 - Where is Gantu? Why did they cut him out of the trailer? Is it because they haven’t finished rendering him yet, because let me tell you, that’s what it looks like for every other character.

2 - Why is Stitch so small. Why is he so small. Why is Stitch that small. He’s supposed to be the same size as Lilo. 1 because it creates more visually-appealing shot compositions when the story is focused on the TWO of them 2 because thematically he is “a future Lilo,” he is the little monster-version of herself that she could turn into if she didn’t have family 3 because the size of a 6 year-old is the perfect balance between “threatening” and “non-threatening” when he has to interact with toddlers and 18 year-old women and 40-foot-tall aliens alike. He cannot. BE. That small. What, we’re supposed to have him stand up on a stool or a stack of books or a countertop every time he and Lilo need to look each other in the eyes?? Did anyone think while making this movie?

3 - How does his orange jumpsuit look so much lazier than it does when it’s a hand-drawn collection of colors and shapes in the original?

4 - Why did they choose the take where the New Nani Actress said “nobody get’s left behind” in a whiny, exasperated voice? When the real Nani specifically delivered that line as if she were somberly, mournfully, reverently remembering what her parents told her? And then moves on to “slightly-annoyed” but only when it’s time to say “I know, I know.”

5 - Why is Stitch so small.

6 - Is that Jumba’s voice?? Why? Why is it not even deep? Why did they re-write the line so he doesn’t mention Stitch as a “monstrosity?”

7 - Speaking of monstrosities—go back and re-do Pleakley. All of him. What—what happened. What happened?? They made every alien I can see in the trailer uglier and less appealing than Stitch—which is SO NOT THE POINT OF HIS CHARACTER DESIGN—but none looked worse to me than Pleakley. He has a fish eye. It is horrifying.

8 - And they made sun-tan-ice-cream-tourist look local. So like…what’s the point of her taking his picture, then? In the beginning of the movie? He’s in the movie to be an example of a hapless tourist, and tourists mean something specific in LILO’s little headspace—she takes safari-pictures of them in her hometown like they’re a rare, foreign sight, because that’s her way of processing the reality that these are people who specifically come to her home just to leave again—and Lilo has issues with people leaving.

9 - Don’t put Stitch on a leash. Don’t do that. There’s a reason they don’t do that in the movies. 1 He is super strong and he is not trying that hard to hide his super strength, especially not when it comes to resisting Nani telling him what to do. 2 Lilo and Nani live in a very laid-back sleepy neighborhood, it changes the vibe when dogs are on leashes. It’s supposed to feel so laid-back that there are lots of free-roaming dogs and no strictly-enforced leash-laws. There are other dogs in the movie and none of them wear leashes or collars. (I know it’s small but the small choices build the movie.)

10 - Lilo. I like that little girl. She can play Lilo all day for all I care. But that is not Lilo. Lilo doesn’t get hip-checked to the ground and then sit there looking sad. I don’t—why do I have to say that? That’s many people’s favorite part of the movie, that she just goes ballistic on Mertle the minute she’s provoked. That better just be a specific edit in the trailer. They better not have cut out her punching Mertle Edmunds in the face. And you know what else? She does not. SCREAM. When she first meets Stitch! You know they could’ve done that, right?? You realize that every other character who sees Stitch for the first time reacts LIKE THIS:

BUT NOT LILO. LILO does not react like any old stereotypical girl. She also does not react like any alien from any planet or any grown women or any tourists expecting to see foreign sights. She reacts uniquely like Lilo: like a nervous little girl hoping to find a friend, who doesn’t bat an eye if that potential friend is blue and shark-mouthed and monstrous. (Everything else about that little girl is perfect, I like her line delivery, I like that she goes “pretty close” when he mispronounces “family,” the original Lilo says “pretty close” in the same tone when she’s trying to teach him how to say new words in the television series.) 11 - Why doesn’t Stitch’s face move at all? Why does it look like his eye muscles and nose muscles have no range of motion, but his lips have way too much? He’s supposed to talk with his jaws more than his lips, like how a crocodile can’t chew or keep food in so it just opens and shuts it’s jaw and throws food to the back of it’s head.

12 - Speaking of re-writing lines, what’s with Lilo and Stitch having an exchange where he admits to being “bad??” And then she point-blank says “family isn’t perfect. But that doesn’t mean they’re not good.”

Is that supposed to be a nod to Stitch saying, at the end of the movie, “It’s little and broken but still good?”

Do you know why the real Stitch is the one to say “it’s (his family’s) little and broken, but still good?” Because he’s saying “good” as in, “acceptable.” “The way it ought to be.” Not “good” as in “morally good” the way that Stitch is “morally bad.” He just uses the word “good” because Stitch can barely speak English and that was the simplest, best way for him to say what he was trying to communicate. If you take him to mean “morally good” then the whole point of the movie gets ruined.

The point of the movie is that the people in your family aren’t perfect, but imperfection won’t break your LOVE for them. It doesn’t mean you ignore your imperfections, and it doesn’t mean you embrace those imperfections and celebrate those imperfections—if it did, you know what, Stitch would still push Lilo to the ground and wreck her stuff and laugh when she’s hurting, the way he does because of his “imperfections” at the start of the movie. But instead, what family is supposed to do with “imperfections,” according to the original movie, is love you anyway and stick around helping you work through them.

That’s the whole point of “nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”

It cannot mean “family members aren’t perfect but we still believe they’re morally good people.” Because that implies that it’s the fact that they’re “morally good people” that makes you stick around, when the whole point of the movie is the opposite: Stitch is objectively morally evil, and they choose to stick around anyway.

Stitch is objectively morally evil. I have to stress that. That’s the whole movie. The whole movie is “what if we start with the villain and redeem him.” If he’s not a villain he doesn’t need redeeming and if he’s not bad it takes all the power out of Lilo’s love for him.

And honestly, he never comes to terms with the fact that he’s “morally bad” in this movie. That’s not the point. He would never admit “Stitch bad” in the original movie. Chris Sanders said, “By the end of the film, he’s not a better person. He has just understood family.”

He becomes “a better person” in the epilogue. But in the original movie, Stitch doesn’t think so much about the difference between “bad” and “good.” He thinks more about the difference between “belonging” and “not belonging.”

Why is this so hard

If you like me don’t go see this movie. More importantly, if you like the original movie—if you think it was good—if you think it was excellent—accept no imitations. Do not go see this new remake.

Remember what Anika Noni Rose just said about the new Princess and the Frog shorts that are coming out—Disney is counting numbers. Do not stream. Do not buy tickets. Just stream and watch the original. And tweet Chris Sanders and tell him how much you love the old one.

[kingofscoops]

Endless Gifs of Steve Harrington (96/?) Stranger Things • 4.01 The Hellfire Club

[hourcat]

sorry im still here....look at the relief on his face the moment he realizes max is going to hold his hand too....he wants it....he needs max like he needs avery....

[veveisveryuncool]

Starry Knight Kirby ☆ Max Pink!

[sylvan-librarian]